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Resurgence Planning in Revolutionary Egypt

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Resurgence Planning in Revolutionary Egypt This is a repository copy of Between Order and Modernity: Resurgence Planning in Revolutionary Egypt. White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/123436/ Version: Accepted Version Article: Selim, G orcid.org/0000-0001-6061-5953 (2016) Between Order and Modernity: Resurgence Planning in Revolutionary Egypt. Journal of Urban History, 42 (1). pp. 180-200. ISSN 0096-1442 https://doi.org/10.1177/0096144214566980 © 2015 SAGE Publications. This is an author produced version of a paper published in Journal of Urban History. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. Reuse Items deposited in White Rose Research Online are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved unless indicated otherwise. They may be downloaded and/or printed for private study, or other acts as permitted by national copyright laws. The publisher or other rights holders may allow further reproduction and re-use of the full text version. This is indicated by the licence information on the White Rose Research Online record for the item. Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing [email protected] including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. [email protected] https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ Between Order and Modernity: Resurgence Planning in Revolutionary Egypt Abstract Egypt’s Revolution of 1952 presented a major historical change to its political and economic structure, its society and its institutions. This paper examines how Nasser’s regime operated through the state apparatus to exhibit features of modernity. Under the pretext of modernisation, renovating Cairo’s authentic urban fabric was one of the channels that displayed the new ambitions to unveil a centralised system of governance and ideologies of socialism. The paper particularly looks at the city’s resurgence attempts, promoted by notions of upgrading that displayed outcomes of western ideals of planning. Eventually, the contradictory planning legislative system introduced by the government raised early alarms at the problems encountered in a planning institution that was not only unable to liberate Cairo’s urban districts from its long-rooted decay, but also struggled to implement the regime’s flagship policy of social justice in a context wherein it was much needed. Keywords: Modernisation; Socialism; legislations; Cairo; old districts; planning institutions. Introduction When inaugurated in the late nineteenth century, the Eiffel Tower celebrated the centennial of the French Revolution and gradually turned into a global cultural icon. The Cairo Tower, constructed in 1961, similarly held a narrative of success. The freestanding concrete tower, imitating styles of the pharaonic antiquity, was designed to become a masterpiece landmark of structural excellence to celebrate the rise of the new republic under Gamal Abdel Nasser’s rule. Following the Free Officers revolution in 1952, and proclaiming Egypt’s independence, the tower’s completion was a matter of civic pride to ‘express defiance of foreign influence in Egypt’.1 Writers claimed that its construction was a game of restoring the balance in Egyptian-American politics, but this remains in question till this day.2 The modern tower that stood in the heart of Cairo provided endless sights of the city’s modern and ancient districts.3 It complemented a series of recently constructed buildings in nearby downtown Cairo, e.g. the Nile Hilton Hotel, the Arab League building and the Socialist Union Headquarters, that played an auguring role in the development of popular opinion and national identity.4 These buildings were a highlight of the modern urbanism envisioned to articulate a distinctive phase of the new Egypt, as per Nasser what dreamt of and manifested in his thoughts and writings (Figure 1).5 1 Historians of this period have mutually depicted the intertwined planning ambitions in nineteenth-century European cities as compounded with politics for reshaping their cities.6 This phase of politicised urbanism is evident.7 Outcomes of the city urbanism were products of endless debate and compromises, which represented an anxious union between political powers, private gain and public good.8 Master plans, in their graphical forms, reveal the prevailing ideologies of regimes they sustain.9 Paris, for example, was planned in an exclusive spatial model, ‘which remains after Haussmann and the fall of the Empire a conditioned town planning approach’.10 On the other hand, the prosperity of postcolonial cities was less discussed in scholarly writings, probably for its disappointing outcomes.11 Critics have been heaping scorn upon plans that only documented phases of capitalism and the exploitation of the people.12 Contemporary academic commentary has resuscitated the query stemming from the paradox of urban modernity; how it set targets and instrumental actions in reshaping urban spaces with relatively coherent goals of political stability, spatial order, the will to improve the city, and primarily the question of how governmental interventions have been indoctrinated, opposed, hybridised or ignored. Following the revolution, Cairo’s resurgence was shaped by the shift from the colonial past towards a future exposed to the outer world. For Nasser, the past was summarily sacrificed to justify the revolution’s success. From one perspective, urban planning was a representative document of the course of a new spatial discourse practised under Nasser’s socialist government. The government, predominantly led by his loyal officers, expanded its sphere of activity in the organisation of space to counter the effect of economic and demographic forces.13 During that period, the government continued to draw migrants into Cairo to contribute to its industrial development and modern commerce. This led to the population increasing from 267.000 people in 1947 to 350.000 in 1960, many of which settled in informal housing in the inner parts of the city lacking basic infrastructure.14 Several social housing blocks were constructed in vibrant locations to absorb the growth which soon had its own problems. The projects in most cases ignored the social and physical contexts, thus causing over population and unregulated mixed-use spaces. Both trends to modernise Cairo’s urbanism and organise its urban growth were the vehicles feeding Nasser’s progress visions during his presidency. Driven by ambition, the reception of master plans drafted to modernise Cairo’s old districts operated under limited appreciation. The schemes were received as aggressive acts of urban change that overlooked fundamental principles of urban regeneration and to replace low-class communities. One indication is that their implementation was overlooked, despite that planning ideas were practised under further scrutiny of application that included the context of stabilising the apparatus of the machines, and the formal bodies and systems needed to establish urban change. This paper aims to investigate Nasser’s ambitions to transform Cairo’s urban form under ideas of spatial modernisation and resurgence. The argument proffered is that Nasser’s socialist visions for creating a reformed state relied on typical models of modern urbanism that proved unsuitable for the older districts of Cairo. The paper will explain how modernisation attempts, under Nasser’s rule, was translated into superficial actions, legislations and practices in the sense of the supersession of the modernisation conceptions 2 that was not only informed by the districts’ urban problems but at the same time was thought to reflect a willingness to engage the city in a modern resurgence of distant splendour. This should not reflect on criticising the outcome as the justification of the process, but the chronicling of visions that informed resurgence planning at that time. It looks at how the process of imposing an imaginary superficial modernity became attuned the inherited spatial traditions of these districts to anticipate satisfactory outcomes and to define modernised urban spaces. For this, when tackling issues of urban planning in Cairo, it is only appropriate to touch upon the complex practices of the planning institution as the main driver of the discipline. The Cairo Governorate, which initiated all planning endeavours under Nasser, thus becomes a reasonable showcase. The paper entails an interdisciplinary approach to investigate these practices, relying widely on key literature and first-hand resources. Fortunately, limited drawings and visual materials still survive in the Governorate archives, while all planning acts were regularly published in the Egyptian Gazette and provided a continual record of the live accounts of planning in Cairo. Significant scholars who researched Cairo with critical accounts of this period were rich resource and are repeatedly cited, such as Janet Abu- Lughod, Nasser Rabbat, Max Rodenbeck, Nezar alSayyad and others. Each section of this paper responds to a subsequent layer of the discussion, initially through contextualising ideas of modernising a city that was captured under colonisation for decades and therefore it highlights how Nasser’s modernisation visions recalled global ideas to transform Cairo. The discussion then moves to assess the planning institution actions, planning legislations and building control and procedures, which reveal the credibility of ideas of modernity; how were they employed and thought to be spatialised?
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